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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

222

Boox II

MARCO POLO

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when speaking of the watershed of the Great Canal at Sinjumatu. Paraphrased the words might run : " At Chang-shan you reach high ground, which interrupts the continuity of the River ; from one side of this ridge it flows up country towards the north, from the other it flows down towards the south." The expression " The River " will be elucidated in note 4 to ch. lxxxii. below.

This route by the Ts'ien T'ang and the Chang-shan portage, which turns the danger involved in the navigation of the fang-tzú and the Poyang Lake, was formerly a thoroughfare to the south much followed ; though now almost abandoned through one of the indirect results (as Baron Richthofen points out) of steam navigation.

The portage from Chang-shan to Yuh-shan was passed by the English and Dutch embassies in the end of last century, on their journeys from Hang-chau to Canton, and by Mr. Fortune on his way from Ningpo to the Bohea country of Fo-kien. It is probable that Polo on some occasion made the ascent of the Ts'ien T'ang by water, and that this leads him to notice the interruption of the navigation.

[Mr. Phillips writes ( T Pao, I. p. 222) : " From ' Fuyang the next point reached is Tunglu, also another loo li distant. Polo calls this city Ugim, a name bearing no resemblance to Tunglu, but this name and Ta Pin Zu are so corrupted in all editions that they defy conjecture. One hundred li further up the river from Tunglu, we come to Yenchau, in which I think we have Polo's Gengiu of Ramusio's text. Yule's text calls this city Ghiuju, possibly an error in transcription for Ghiuju ; Yenchau in ancient Chinese would, according to Williams, be pronounced Ngam, Ngin, and Ngienchau, all of which are sufficiently near Polo's Gengiu. The next city reached is Lan Ki Hien or Lan Chi Hsien, famous for its hams, dates, and all the good things of this life, according to the Chinese. In this city I recognise Polo's Zen Gi An of

Ramusio.   Does its description justify me in my identification ? ` The city of
"Zen gi an," ' says Ramusio, ` is built upon a hill that stands isolated in the river, which latter, by dividing itself into two branches, appears to embrace it. These streams take opposite directions : one of them pursuing its course to the south-east and the other to the north-west.' Fortune, in his Wanderings in China (vol. ii. p. 139), calls Lan. Khi, Nan-Che-hien, and says : ` It is built on the banks of the river, and has a picturesque hill behind it.' Milne, who also visited it, mentions it in his Life in China (p. 258), and says : ` At the southern end of the suburbs of Lan-Ki the river divides into two branches, the one to the left on south-east leading direct to Kinhua.' Milne's description of the place is almost identical with Polo's, when speaking of the division of the river. There are in Fuchau several Lan-Khi shopkeepers, who deal in hams, dates, etc., and these men tell me the city from the river has the appearance of being built on a hill, but the houses on the hill are chiefly temples. I would divide the name as follows, Zen gi an ; the last syllable an most probably represents the modern Ilien, meaning District city, which in ancient Chinese was pronounced Han, softened by the Italians into an. Lan-Khi was a Hien in Polo's day."—H. C.]

Kin-hwa fu, as Pauthier has observed, bore at this time the name of WU—CH AU, which Polo would certainly write Vu;iu. And between Shao-hing and Kin-hwa there exists, as Baron Richthofen has pointed out, a line of depression which affords an easy connection between Shao-hing and Lan-ki hien or Kin-hwa fu. This line is much used by travellers, and forms just 3 short stages. Hence Kin-hwa, a fine city destroyed by the T'ai-P'ings, is satisfactorily identified with Vztgiu.

The journey from Vugui to Ghiuju is said to be through a succession of towns and villages, looking like a continuous city. Fortune, whose journey occurred before the T'ai-P'ing devastations, speaks of the approach to Kiu-chau as a vast and beautiful garden. And Mr. Milne's map of this route shows an incomparable density of towns in the Ts'ien T'ang valley from Yen-chau up to Kiu-chau. Ghiuju then will be KiuCHAU. But between Kiu-chau and Chang-shan it is impossible to make four days : barely possible to make two. My map (Itineraries, No. VI.), based on D'Anville and Fortune, makes the direct distance 24 miles ; Milne's map barely IS ; whilst from his book we deduce the distance travelled by water to be about 30. On the whole, it seems probable that there is a mistake in the figure here.